In the interests of transparency, I’d like to outline the stupid things I did while making this quilt so you can learn from my mistakes, or at least have a good laugh.

1. Firstly, and most stupidly. As I was preparing to sew the last two rows of this quilt, I realised that I had been sewing with my needle offset (The last thing I’d sewn was piping.) For some reason, I decided to move the needle back to 0. I don’t know why I did this. Even as I did it, I said to myself, Self, I don’t think this is smart, just sew the whole thing 3mm out of whack, at least it will be consistent. In my defence, it was very late at night and…that’s all I’ve got. It was late.

You don’t have to be much smarter than me to figure out what happened. 3mm over the 15 squares, each with 2 seams, added up. I tried to make it work. I pinned and convinced the two edges to merge. It looked terrible – waves and pintucks everywhere, and a serious bow at the edges. So close to finishing, I was a little distraught, but the mister peeled me gently off the machine and put me to bed.

The next morning I pulled those rows off and sewed new ones, needle back in the wrong place. All was not lost, I used the two bad rows in the backing. I love a happy ending.

2. Using an IKEA bedspread. Diana from Sticks and Bubbles let me know that the quilt she made her son with the same bedspread had begun to pill. This is always a risk when using ‘non-professional’ quilting cottons – I guess it’s up to everyone to decide for themselves, with factors such as cost and wear in mind. As this was an experimental quilt for me I was happy to use this material. If I make the quilt again I will use standard commercial quilting cottons. (I also only use commercial materials when making gifts – it’s not worth the worry.)

3. This isn’t really a mistake, more an observation. The Warm and White all cotton batting equivalent I buy here in France shrinks more than the batting I buy in Australia. So if you are ever in France making a quilt (as you do) and don’t like your quilts to get too wrinkly, you might consider pre-washing your batting. I don’t mind the crinkliness myself, looks more cuddly.

What else has been going on? I finished the back for the retro quilt and basted it. Here he’ll stay until I can get to the quilt store to pick up some matching quilting thread.

And I was in the mood for easy last night, so I used a charm square pack of Moda’s ‘Dream On’ to make a quick girl mat top. I paired it with Kona Snow for a softer look.

It’s a grey, rainy day here in southern France – disappointing as today is a public holiday.

I thought some bright, cheery colour would help the situation so here is a mini-tutorial for another lantern makeover I completed the other week.

This lantern came from Castorama (which I think is only in Europe), but you could easily adapt any rice paper lantern to the task.

My lantern was already half green (full green would make the room look really weird at night), but it needed a little something extra, I thought. Wary of how long the bunting lantern took me I was keen for something more instantly gratifying this time round, so paper it had to be.

I started with a 10€ lantern and a butterfly paper punch.

I turned the lantern upside down and used a throw-away BBQ skewer and some matching paint to highlight the framework on the white half of the lantern. (At this stage you could paint the top half of a plain lantern if you liked.)

When the paint was dry, I started thinking about butterfly placement. I decided to go heavy with the green and accent with the red. The framework sectors were helpful in arranging a layout.

I went with a starburst pattern; heavy at the bottom and sparser at the top. Kind of like the little suckers were fleeing the lantern. I just used a dab of craft glue to stick them on.

For the top (green) half of the lantern I considered the same in reverse. Perhaps heavy on the white.

Or maybe the red?

Or maybe use the empty cut outs in some way?

In the end, given it was the top and wouldn’t really be seen, I went with a more even pattern.

Here it is back up on the ceiling.

Happily, IKEA makes a red light fitting that matches perfectly!

Perhaps not as flash as the bunting one, but so much quicker and easier to make. And with all the different paper punches out there, you could easily create a masterpiece.

Hope your week’s started off well, and not as wet as ours. I’ll be back a little later today with a little giveaway. Nothing earth shattering, but hopefully inspirational for someone!

Process posts in quilting blogland were all the rage a month or so ago and I love them. It’s so interesting to see where everyone gets their ideas and how a final creation comes together. So here’s my version.

1. I need to make another quilted baby mat for a little boy.2. I read too many home decorating magazines.3. I <3 IKEA.

These three coalesced the other day when I saw this picture:

And then this in IKEA:

I loved the bold colours in this doona/duvet/eiderdown (whatever you call it) cover and pillowslip set.

Lots of matching material in nicely sized squares ready to be hacked to pieces and sewed back together again.

Quilting does seem a little silly when you think of it this way, so I prefer to think of my re-sewing as value-adding.

So the bathroom photo was translated into a design chart (I inverted the blues and the greens as I had more of the later):

(sorry about this pic, I should have upped the contrast but I’m too lazy to go back and do it)

I cut out a hellofalotta squares and started laying it out.

Then I tweaked it a bit, moving a few squares here and there.

Hmm, I’m not so sure about this.

So, to the kitchen for cuppa and a think.

1. What is it that I love about the original inspiration photo?2. I love the subtle graduations in colour between the turquoises and aquas.3. I also love the use of larger squares to frame the smaller, more mosaic-like squares.4. Why is it so quiet?5. Where is that kid – you know the one, small, no hair. Other two children shrug around their mid-morning snacks.6. Crap, did I remember to shut the study door?

No. No, I did not.

I really wasn’t upset because I already knew I wouldn’t be making that quilt (plus the little guy was having such a great time it was impossible not to laugh).

The big kids were mortified, having followed the process all morning. My son was especially enamoured with the ‘quilt map’. I think he’s going to be an engineer (bless him).

While I fed the baby they picked up all the squares and put them into separate piles for me. Yay, kisses all round.

Later, that night, I tried some other layouts. I knew that I really wanted to explore the colour-graduation thing. And that some white was needed.

Simple, structured, sexy.

Mixing it up with some half squares as well.

Or maybe lose the grid and go for lines instead.

The inverse. I love me some negative space.

These are just small mock-ups to get an idea of how the pattern would look – the finished quilt will be larger. I used one inch paper strips to make the borders (much quicker to lay out and move around than fabric).

I still plan to make my original design, but using a more subtle colour range as per the original inspiration.

But for the redesigns, I think I’m going to go with the first one. Which do you prefer?

For some reason, since coming home from the States, I’ve had a burning desire to get our house in order. I have a few partially completed decorating projects around the place and spent the past week or so getting back into them.

The first was this lantern. You see them everywhere – plain white paper lanterns. You can find them on Amazon*, in all different sizes and even colours.

I had the idea that I should decorate it with some wee-little bunting. I had a very clear picture of the end product in my mind and started out full of exuberance one night.

I needed binding to attach my little flags to – so long 2 inch strips of fabric were ironed into binding. (For those quilt-impaired, this means iron the material in half long ways, open up and fold each edge into the centre and iron again, then fold the whole thing back in half on itself. Keeps all the messy cut edges folded inside.)

If you’re not interested in making your own binding, you can buy it pre-made in 3 yd lengths. It comes in lots of colours – there’s a selection here*, including one in gold lamé*, which is very fancy.

Then to make all those little flags. I layered 4 or 5 strips (1.5 in) on top of each other and see-sawed my little ruler along it to cut triangles. See my new little ruler*? Cute huh?

This was a great stash-buster BTW.

Anyhoo, after cutting what seemed like a million little flags, I started to wonder why I’d thought up this hare-brained decorating scheme. But it was all worth it when cute little lines of bunting popped out the back of the sewing machine.

I gave it a quick pressing with my iron and it came up beautifully.

Then came the best part. The hot glue gun. This was a recent purchase, not yet used. Where have you been all my life, little glue gun*? This is the best invention ever! I know, I don’t get out much.

After all that cutting, ironing and sewing, this was a breeze. I just glued the bunting down following the lantern’s framework. All done.

Then I released my bunting lantern into the wilderness. Here it is in it’s new home:

I’ve finished sewing a pair of cushions. Initially I was only making one cushion, but when I this stripy patched square for the backing I thought it should be a cover of its own. I’m happy the offcuts of my log cabin triangle blocks found a home here, too. And here’s how the triangles turned out. I decided to use white piping to bring out the centre circle. Note to self – next time allow for half inch rather than quarter inch seams all the way around – much less fiddly, particularly with the myriad of overlapping log cabin seams. The backs were two pieces of contrasting Good Folks’ material and a zipper closure. Those colours are just fantastic. I’m so glad I love the way they’ve turned out as they took a looooong time to put together. Next up, a baby quilt using these fabrics:

All Star, by My Minds Eye. Sweet designs for a very dear little boy who’ll be showing up in our extended family soon.

Spring – a great time for new projects. And I need a new project – what with raising a family, learning French, trying to become a proficient sewer and attempting to get back into running after baby no. 3 – I have so* much time to fill. Why not start a blog?

I am a very lucky Australian living in southern France for a few years with the mister and our entertaining children. This blog is where I’ll keep a record of this once-in-a-lifetime experience, namely:

travel

sewing/craft projects

things about life in France that float my boat

I’m also anticipating some side benefits to blogging . Hopefully it will teach me to take notice of and appreciate everything going on around me (sometimes difficult to do from inside the cyclone). A bit of motivation to get on and finish some sewing projects taking up valuable flat surface area would also be nice, not to mention an incentive to improve my photography skills. Oh, and if I can keep track of the links to all the sites and shops I can’t live without, that would also be great. Thanks.

Unless stated otherwise, all content (text and photographs) belongs to Bonjour Quilts, so please do not use without permission. The use of a single photograph and a link back to the site is fine, for educational or informational purposes, but please don’t republish more than this in any form (digital or paper). Do not take my photographs and offer them for download (free or paid) on your website.